What a great shame it is that collegiate football, the origin of American football, and its overseeing association has been scrutinized about something so irrelevant to the great game which Americans have so dearly loved since baseball started getting boring; it is an outrage that people bring up payment for student-athletes and question the entire football bowl sub-division’s very set-up. These people (Media members, former athletes, and shockingly some coaches!) have the audacity to believe that the NCAA’s BCS system is flawed, however colleges don’t have enough money to pay for these privileges to begin with: Colleges and Universities are not businesses; they are places of higher learning which need to be maintained. It has become apparent that the NCAA needs to further help struggling Universities in the United States pay for these expensive programs, and although the BCS is not perfect it is the best option the board has to keep Americans watching college football, and facilitate reimbursement for the generous colleges and their respective football teams.

I think we can all agree that football is America’s most popular sport at the moment. I think we can also come to agree that it also the most expensive with the protective gear, stadium costs, and of course, worst of all, the massive scholarship money that must be given away to the players of the game. Clearly, Universities are being ravaged by these preposterous expenses. Furthermore, as the newest president of the NCAA I must assert that our past stance on this subject has been much too nonchalant, henceforth I propose that the association do everything in its power and jurisdiction to improve collegiate conditions, raise revenue, and reward the American viewing public.

My proposal is fairly reasonable; it will greatly increase revenue in the FBS, and it will greatly assist in funding our grand centers of intrinsic intellectuals, sophisticated scholars, and achieving academics. The solution came to me when reading about one of America’s most perseverant individuals, Fredrick Douglas. His brilliance has inspired me to make sure all American’s are able receive the profound education, and thus we must use football as a tool to help achieve this dream that he and I both share.

The main idea of my proposal revolves around one thesis: colleges that partake in the FBS must be have a rich football environment ripe for training, conditioning, and growing for the best possible product on the field; the team’s coaches must tend to the product of the football field extensively and must cultivate competitive teams religiously in order to sell it to the public; recruiting should be vigorously conducted so the hardest working and most able bodied men are selected to play; lastly student athletes will be indentured to their respective colleges unless altered by an agreement between colleges or by the board of the NCAA. This may sound vague, but as I elaborate it will come together quite fluidly.

Beginning with arguably the most basic and necessary part of football, the athletes. There should be no ambiguity on this subject, the student athletes will not be paid for their service on the fields. However, they will receive, as it stood before I came to power, room and board, adequate sustenance, a rigorous workout routine, and if time allows an education as well, all free of charge. They will be unable to leave this service at any time for duration of four years, or if the coach decides up to 5 or even 6 years. Thankfully, this indenture will prohibit them from bailing out on our programs for freedom in the National Football League subsequently keeping them on our fields to produce more of that money necessary for our schools to prosper. These young men will be the building block of our peculiar institution and their dedicated toil on the field will allow colleges to grow and expand, as well as help put money back into the pockets of important donors to the colleges thanks to the brilliant production our athletes show on the field.

The next order of business would be the finding and recruitment of said athletes. I have made several revisions to this extremely flawed process. For instance, instead of the arbitrary asking of a recruit to join the 120 teams of the FBS will partake in a bidding war on said athlete, and reimburse his breeders (mom and dad). I know that this will result in a loss of profit, but I have come up with a solution that even the NFL had not done for its rookies (which they are arguing about in their CBA induced lockout season) and create a salary cap. Moreover, I will create a tax on the purchasing of these men, that will be the same for all 120 teams, and this tax will be 10% of whatever was spent on the man then the total of these savings will then be distributed to the bottom 30 teams at the end of the season to improve parity in our great game that seemed to have been lacking in the last few years. Lastly, our pseudo psychologists here in Indianapolis, Indiana have discovered that the greatest athletes come from the continent of Africa since no European or Asian has ever run the 100 yard in under 10 seconds. This is an excellent opportunity for our association to pounce upon. The struggles of these countries will make our mission appear philanthropic as we rescue struggling Africans and bring them to our colleges to endure on the college gridiron. Not only will they be a cheap source of labor, they will improve the overall athleticism in our game, thus our profits would improve exponentially.

Once all 120 teams have found some sort of competitive niche, we can play them in 60 complete bowl games to maximize our profits. The National Championship Game will be drawn from a random computer generator to keep it fair since most of the league should be about equal at this point anyway. This way every game will be just as enjoyable to watch as the other, and there wouldn’t be any complaints about who plays in the game, and why because the next season there is an amazing possibility that the left out team will play in the Championship game. Whether it be the Meineke Car Care bowl, the Chick-fil-a Bowl, or the Rose bowl, it will be our same unique product.

I already know some people in our democratic America will be outraged by such a thought, and I admit that at first I did feel that this was bordering upon slavery. However, I realized that, no, this could not be slavery since they were free to go after a certain amount of years. It would be just like indentured servitude with a free trip to American and all for those in the chaotic continent of Africa. Every history book I have read since the 5th grade never ever says that indentured servitude was an evil process carried out by the colonials, but rather they praise it by claiming it helped create the foundation of the English in the Americas. Furthermore, using a logical sequence of events one could conclude that without indentured servitude America would not exist. What a horrendous thought!

You see me friends this is merely the foundation for our ever growing NCAA. It is necessary we grow a product like this on our football fields. One day our great grandchildren will thank us for their actions, as they are not only entertained by a modern day coliseum on a national scale, but as our gargantuan bank accounts pay for their top notch academics in the best 120 schools in the country. All would come to benefit from this plan the college itself, their altruistic donors, and even the general populace of America. This rather reasonable method of improving the revenue of the BCS system is essential to the future of not only collegiate football but the pockets of every university in the United States.

(This is just an essay I had to do for AP Lang, it is modeled after Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" tell me what you think, hopefully not too bad. Any feedback would be nice =) )

One question, or thought: you say the athletes won't be compensated beyond what they already are (ie: a scholarship), but then you make the caveat of providing an education "if time allows." The purpose of indentured servitude was not only to provide businessmen with cheap labor but to also provide the next generation with an opportunity to go into business for themselves with the experience they gathered while indentured. Not every athlete that plays collegiately will make it into the NFL, and if you deny athletes a piece of the financial pie and also you deny them the education that is inherently promised in the word "scholarship" than it is in my opinion that would not make them indentured servants, but rather slaves.

You either have to pay them for their work or you have to ensure they are afforded every opportunity to graduate so they can work after the term of their indenture is concluded.